How to spend 24 hours in Atlanta
This summer we took a quick weekend trip to Atlanta for a Taylor Swift concert. We decided to make a weekend out of it and included a few of the (what we thought were) family essentials. Here is our family’s take on it:
HOTEL
We chose to stay at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown. I don’t remember exactly why we chose it but it probably had to do with price and the fact that we could walk everywhere from there. I looked at parking garages before we arrived on Parking Panda but decided that it was worth the few extra dollars to have our car at the hotel and use the valet. Our room was fine, but the hotel was in complete chaos when we arrived. People checking out warned me of their troubles. I refused their offer to put us in a King room with a rollaway when our 2 Doubles weren’t ready. When we returned from our afternoon outing there must have been over 200 people in line. I’ve really never seen anything like it in hospitality. Next time I’d stay right by the aquarium or outside downtown.
WORLD OF COCA-COLA MUSEUM
We arrived to Atlanta around lunchtime and decided the World of Coca Cola museum seemed like a must-see family attraction. It was #2 on Tripadvisor for Things to Do in Atlanta. Apparently every other Taylor Swift concert-going family had the same idea. Even the employees at the museum seemed astonished at the crowd. We waited about 45 minutes to get in and began the procession to getting into the museum. It started with a Coke host who was part comedian part Coke historian. He gave us a few nuggets of Coke history before we moved into a theatre to watch the World of Coca Cola: Moments of Happiness film. I will admit it now. This was my favorite part of the whole museum. I actually cried during this 6 minute film. It takes pretty great storytelling to get people bought into “characters” in that short period of time. I now realize, we probably aren’t the best family to be reviewing this museum. I gave up soda over 7 months ago and we don’t allow the kids to drink it. I’m not sure why I thought this was a good idea. The history stuff that was interesting to us adults was boring to the kids. All they wanted to do was go to the tasting room and walk through the live manufacturing process, which Josh and I thought was pretty interesting, too. The tasting room was insane. There are pods of drink dispensers organized by continents. I got pretty excited when I found my ginger beer from Tanzania, Stoney, and later discovered this appears to be the only place in the US that has it. We stayed in the room as long as we could endure our shoes sticking to the floor and then watched the 4D movie before calling it an afternoon. If you have extra time in Atlanta and there isn’t an unusually large crowd in town, it’s an okay way to spend a few hours. However, we’ve checked that off our list and would prefer so many other things that Atlanta has to offer.
THE GEORGIA AQUARIUM
I could probably do just a post on the Georgia Aquarium. We love aquariums and were lucky enough to visit the one in Shanghai last year. And why all the marine life inside the walls is amazing, Josh and I were fascinated with the design and construction of the building itself. We were told it is the largest aquarium in the world. The highlights for us were the whale sharks and beluga whales. We seemed to plan the visit perfectly. We pre purchased 9am tickets so that we were the first ones there and went immediately to the Ocean Voyager area. We got to sit and marvel at the whale sharks and giant manta rays almost by ourselves. We took the advice of one of the guides and did the first Sea Lion show over the whale shark feeding. We ended up rushing back over after the show to see the feeding. It really wasn’t anything to watch. We had heard mixed reviews on the dolphins and decided to skip it to look at all the other exhibits. Before we left we tried to go up to the top of the large tank to look at the whale sharks from above. The guides must have understood our questions because when we got up there we discovered you could only do that with a tour. We must have looked bummed because one of the tour guides, Dan, approached us and started making small talk. Next thing I knew, he offered to give us a private tour and showed us into the top of the tank. After we shared that we were engineers, we got all sorts of info on the construction of the tanks and then were taken into the mechanical rooms to see how all the water filtration. Dan provided the best customer service we have gotten in a very long time. He completely made our day. They offer the group tours as part of the Behind the Seas program. We can’t wait to go back in 2020 when the shark expansion opens.
KROG MARKET
Before we hit the road to head back to Charlotte on Sunday afternoon, we wanted to visit one of the famous Atlanta food halls. I would have loved to get to Ponce City Market, too, but we had to settle for one. I chose Krog Street Market because the new Tompkins Hall market is based off this design. A friend from Atlanta pointed us in the right direction. I grabbed a Shawarma bowl from Yalla (think Yafo Kitchen for all you Charlotteans) while the rest of the family got food from Fred’s Meats & Bread. The burger from Fred’s is worth the hype. Get it. Josh got their special catfish and said it was good but he liked the burger better. The space itself is pretty cool and if we lived in Atlanta I’m sure we’d be there all the time. There is a free parking lot but it is pretty small considering the crowd. Be patient or just do paid parking on the other side of the building.
